Overall much better scenery, backgrounds, textures, etc. I just think they missed the mark with all of their newly updated character art.
None of the character faces seem like they belong in this classic game. They look like real world cross-addicted homeless people. Much better character art direction for post-apocalyptic games but not-so-much Diablo.
Some items I avoid putting on certain characters because the combination is ugly. It’s an eyesore staring at toons that look like the Zoolander Derelicte Fall Collection.
Thankfully we can’t really see them in detail or up-close after the initial character selection screen. Minor quibble.
Press the legacy game hotkey and compare the background textures – the olde original graphics are very outdated and ugly so I’m very grateful for this overhaul.
New graphics are awesome and it’s one of the best remasters compared to others like GTA trilogy.
Only thing bothering me are some of still unfinished skill effects like Diablo’s lightning beam or Sorc’s Inferno. They look like placeholders and should be thicker, closer to original. Baal’s attacks also don’t feel as impressive like in original.
This was a very common complaint before and at release of D2R in 2021. I tend to agree with you but as you said, it’s easy enough to get over.
Yeah I feel like Shako and Vamp Gaze look worse than the legacy design, despite technically being more true to the artwork. As you say though, not a huge deal.
I’m honestly not sure what the deal is there but IMO the “legacy” mode graphics on D2R look worse than legacy D2 did. I have recent experience playing the legacy game right before D2R launched, so I don’t think it’s entirely nostalgia/rose tinted glasses, although I was running a Glide Wrapper on the legacy game so maybe that improved things enough that I don’t remember the original graphics as well as I thought.
It’s cool to be able to swap back, and it seems to enable some people with lower end systems to run the game when they can’t in the Resurrected mode, but I do feel like it’s sort of a gimmick and likely makes the game harder to run since it’s always running the old game in the background.
100% agree. Bone helms in general need to be thicker. Didn’t they have a different look at the very beginning and they changed it? I feel like I remember this and being like “WTF why did they even change it?”
The HD overlay is maniacally unoptimized. This is hands down the biggest flop of the remaster. The graphical boost you get compared to how much more it demands of your GPU is abysmal. You can play with all settings tanked and it looks 99% like playing with all settings maxed. It’s mind blowing how poorly crafted it is.
The artistic direction that it took with characters is overall disappointing. Sorc is fine. Paladin is fine. Necro is fine. Note, not good or amazing, just fine. Barb is passable. Druid is bizarrely haggard and gross. Amazon, the class named after tall, strong, beautiful woman warriors, looks jaded and aged. The proportions of the assassin reflect nothing of the original model. It’s just bad.
The real question is if the HD overlay completely trumps the original graphics of the game, and stylistically, they don’t. Some parts of the HD overlay are nice, and some parts are frankly worse. The only real enhancement for using the HD overlay is the widescreen, and that personal item filters work only on the HD overlay.
It’s a disappointment. When you think of a D2 remaster, D2R misses the mark, and it misses it by a huge margin.
It’s not the true D2 legacy graphics. They’re upscaled and made to be more 3D than the faux 3D 2D of legacy D2. You’ll notice it when you walk under anything and terrain will pop out a bit.
I play purely in legacy mode graphics and it’s the same, you need to go to the options in D2R and enable Glide to make it the exact same as legacy D2LoD. Otherwise without enabling glide yes it looks way worse.
My only option/request would be to allow the game to be in legacy mode graphics all the time without having to toggle it. Even better would be to allow the game to have a lightweight option where it doesn’t even load the HD/Remastered assets and the toggle is disabled completely, to help make load times as fast as the original, and allow the game to run better on older hardwares. Of course D2R will still be preferred because it does not delete online characters which is basically worth it on its own (to those who would say just play legacy D2 then if we want these things, that is)
Barbtista is best. I like the different take on his physique, it’s more of a powerlifter build than a bodybuilder build. It’s not fully faithful to the source material but in this particular case I don’t mind the creative liberties they took with the barb.
Good info! I had largely ignored the legacy graphics options since I so rarely use that mode.
It does explain why the original game on correct era hardware that was able to make better use of DirectDraw, Direct 3D or Glide/3DFX looked better than D2R’s legacy graphics mode on modern hardware without the wrapper, unless I’m misremembering how it all works, which is highly possible.
I got used to the Amazon. I’ve seen some IRL Kul Tirans that are fairly attractive, so it isn’t really a problem. Except the face. Her face looks like the Orange Megalomaniac™. That is the only thing I’d really like changed.
This was always 100% of the problem with zon. You can even see it in the forum icon. It’s a male face. Strong, even chiseled, female faces exist, but they chose a male face for the amazon. I mean that sincerely. Swap any masculine hairstyle onto the amazon head and it looks like a decidedly male character. I chalk that up to reusing these HD assets in this very cheap HD overlay in D2R. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that every new character model’s face came from the same base model.
